


Rise of the Necromancer's Army

by KaliRaven



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bad Portrayl of Necromancy, Blood Magic, Gen, I mean he was already dead though so I'm not sure if it applied, Magic, Original Character Death(s), Original Female Character - Freeform, Original Male Character - Freeform, Original Undead Character, Original Zombies?, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 02:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20250928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaliRaven/pseuds/KaliRaven
Summary: Darkness haunts the forest where a group of coven necromancers do their work. Amongst them, their Head Priestess raises her undead army to attack her enemies. This is the story of Undead Soldier number twenty-one. Or, how someone can have the unfortunate ability to have sentience in their second life.





	Rise of the Necromancer's Army

The chanting is rhythmic, hypnotic. A mixed group of voices rumble across the field, shaking its listeners to their cores. The once freezing air surrounding them is now burning their exposed skin. The cloaked chanters have sweated through their outfits. Their red lined, black colored tunics and pants sticking to them sticking to them and serving as a second skin. Their cloaks stay wrapped tight around their necks and falls straight down their back, trapping the heat even further. Audience members are shedding their clan robes to stay cool, a small pile forming at the edge of the summoning circle. The energy of everyone’s excitement and curiosity can be felt radiating from the congregation, an invisible warm glow in the middle of the blackness surrounding them.

A crumbling stone altar sits in the middle of a complex chalk drawing. Runes and unidentifiable symbols stretch across the open field they are working in. Atop of the slab of the altar lies a decaying corpse; lifeless as the day it was buried. What was once healthy, pink skin is now a dusty grey. The ashen flesh is exposed through what used to be a nice funeral suit, now several past meals for worms and moths. The bottom half of the body is a dark red from the blood pooling quickly after death. An unnerving stillness radiates around the corpse, a grim reminder of humanity’s imminent future. Sections of bone are exposed through missing flesh and decaying muscle. A circle of cloaked strangers stands around him, chanting in an ancient tongue at him. The poor soul knows nothing of what is about to come.

The chanting comes to a standstill late into the night. Incenses are lit under the full moon and the candles are extinguished. The only light comes from the corpse as a small faintly tan glow grows across his chest. A cloaked figure steps out of the circle and walks up to the head of the body, his hand reaching out to hover over the source of the light. The soft glow highlights the white accents on the edges of his tunic, marking his place as the circle leader. He starts into a slow monologue in an ancient tongue, guiding the light throughout the body. He works head to toe, first guiding the soft glow through the head and then down to the arms. He starts a new section of speech with each limb. While none of the words are understood in practice, the weight of the importance of them is felt. As the speaker works through each body part, life is blown into them. A twitch of the knee here, a curling of the hand there, a soft exhale of an opening mouth.

Long minutes pass, possibly hours, before the speaker's part of the ritual is over. Fatigue has gripped him as fascination spreads among the rest of the coven. He weakly steps back from the twitching corpse and shuffles back to his place in the circle. Not a moment after he takes his place a woman forces her way through the same circle. The average woman is of standard height, one who could fade in and out of any situation were it not for her high held head and the confidence rolling off of her in waves. She makes a point to make her presence known. Her silver and black robes are a bright contrast to the sea of red around her as the candles encircling the cloaked circle are relit.

She powers past the chanters, paying them no heed, and stops at the altar. A long stretch of silence passes as she watches the twitching corpse struggle its way back into the realm of the living. She watches with fascination as exposed muscle contracts in a hole created by decaying flesh. Tendons are being actively pulled at the joins to create an almost seizure like twitch. A sadistic smile crosses her face as she hovers her left arm over the corpse. She pushes the billowing sleeve up to her elbow, admiring the scarring along her forearm. Long, straight discolorations decorate her pale flesh. A fresh scab still sits near her wrist, some flakings still falling when she brushes against them.

The twitching corpse arches its back and falls back with a thud, breaking her reverie. The priestess snarls in anger but just as quickly pulls back her emotions. A clear head is required for this delicate procedure. With her free arm she slips a dagger out its sheath. The holster produces a scratching sound of leather on leather as it slides on the belt holding her robe together. The pointed blade shines in the candlelight, reflecting the priestess’s eyes as she holds in in front of her.

A beautiful obsidian blade, carved to a point. The shape is reminiscent of a quarter moon, symbolic of a new birth. The blood that the blade sets free is used to bring new life into the world. The same way that the quarter moon is but an infant that grows into a full moon and brings light into the world; the same moon whose light is now reflecting off of the finely carved obsidian blade.  
The priestess holds her bare arm over the chest of the twitching corpse. She drags the blue and purple tinted black blade down her scarred and scabbed arm. Blood quickly trickles down her arm, the warm. The warm thick liquid chasing away the cold. It flows down and forms droplets along the bottom of her forearm until the weight of each drops becomes too large to defy gravity any longer and then falls onto the now bare chest of the corpse. The moth spotted shirt and tux jacket are laying in a pile by the altar.

The moment the first drop hits the body, a shrill screech forces itself from the mouth of the now officially undead creature. White teeth reveal themselves as the lips are forced back with tears being chiseled into the lips as the creature forces its mouth open to continue its unholy screams. Each new drop quickly sinks into the skin as it drops onto the gasping corpse. Its chest heaves as old muscle memories kick in. The creature begins to flail as the blood continues to drop and finally pushes itself off of the altar. It lands with a thud, bones cracking from the sudden impact.  
The priestess pulls a bottle from a pocket in her robe with her free hand; a small, clear container filled with an off green liquid. She pulls the cork with her teeth and pours the contents over her bleeding arm. The wound immediately clots and the liquid washes away the fresh blood. She carefully places the cork back into the bottle and drops it back in her pocket; all with the grace of being able to ignore the ear piercing screeches of the creature at her feet.

The creature claws at the stone bed of the altar, frustrated and in fear. Due to its young age as a newborn, it cannot stand without assistance. It must adapt to its missing muscles and deteriorating tendons. It is also only as strong as it blood it took in, which was not much. More spine-curdling groans come from the cracked mouth the undead creature as it begins to panic as it spies the priestess coming towards it. It attempts to crawl away but only ends up falling down, sprawled amongst the dirt.

The priestess stares the creature down with disdain. She has by now self-admitted that this is one of her most frustrating conversions yet. Corpses rarely fight back this much. She fishes in one of her pockets and takes out a carved stone tethered to a leather cord. A misshapen, obviously hand carved, circle made of a polished red granite. An enchanted will-controlling pendant bound to the creature's soul during the awakening process. A foreign symbol was thickly carved into one side and then painted over with a dark, almost brown, type of a red. It almost looks like the carved symbol is painted over with blood. The long cord is wrapped up the priestess’s arm, a small length was running through her tightly clenched fist. The charm dangles a few inches below her wrist.

“You will still yourself.” The priestess commands. The corpse immediately freezes, confusion evident across its face. “You will stand.” The priestess jerks her wrist up quickly, a motion familiar to most as one to stand up. The corpse follows obediently. Anger quickly crosses its face, gaining a slight understanding in what is going on. Still, it cannot seem to fight back. “Salute.” Intelligence is obvious in its facial expressions. The poor soul has the unfortunate gift of being sentient in its second life. A smug grin crawls across the priestess’s face as the creature’s arm goes to its forehead, standing tall with an arched back and baring its teeth. The priestess smirks while lowering the charm and walks away, her new personal servant following behind her.

As soon as they begin to walk away the chanters begin to dash around the summoning circle as they gather the objects needed to restart the ceremony again. Further they walk away from the clearing until they reach the deep forest where the only sounds are the priestess’s dress brushing against the tall grass and the dragging steps of the undead creature following behind her. Snorts and grunts of discontent occasionally pierce the quiet they have but are paid no heed by the stronger of the two.

They travel a fair distance through the forest. Dense pockets of trees claim home to beautiful climbing vines and broken tree limbs on the ground. A few rabbits dash out of their home in the hollow log when they approach. The density thins out a little further in and flowers can be seen in bloom in the areas between the tops of the trees. The sound of a river can be heard not too far in the distance.

The priestess finally comes to a stop on the edge of another clearing. It was made recently, judging from the piles of tree limbs and logs scattered around. Several huts scatter the large clearing, undead corpses shambling about from house to house. Some are nothing more than skeletons with scraps of muscle hanging onto their bones in areas exposed through their leather armor. All of the undead turn around at the priestess’s presence, their arms rising in salute with swords in hand before returning to their previous activities.

The new corpse finds its feet walking by themselves to stand by the priestess. It looks to the right hesitantly to find a small smile upon her face. She turns and looks back at it and then back to the active village.

“This is your new home. You will find a hut to stay in during the day and at night you will train with the others in the sparring village behind the village. Any direct disobedience or attempts to escape will be met with punishment that will make you wish you were dead again. Be prepared, we attack in a month’s time.” She casts a look at the angrily enraptured corpse and leaves the corpse in the field staring at her as she stalks away. She glides through the forest and clearing, looking at her scarred arm and thinking to herself, _Twenty down, eight more to go._


End file.
